The Wolfe by Kathryn Le Veque Page A

hadn’t grasped the severity of the situation.
    “What is happening?” she demanded
warily.
    William reined his huge horse beside
Jason. He still had yet to even look at her.
    “I want you to take Lady Jordan and
ride for hell to Northwood,” he ordered the young knight . “We shall try to buy
you enough time to reach safety.”
    “Are they Scots?” Jordan asked
loudly so that he would have to respond. “Then mayhap I know them. One word
from me will send them away.”
    He turned to her, his face obscured
by the helmet. “My lady, there are near six hundred of them, twice the rank I
carry. They have crossed the English border after us and I doubt one word from
you would send them away.”
    She looked at him a long moment and
he saw her face go pale. “Are they bearing Scott tartan?” she whispered in a
strangled voice.
    “Aye,” he said, spurring his horse
after his men.
    Jordan’s breath caught in her
throat. She ran hot and cold with the knowledge that her father had betrayed
her. Sweet Jesu’ , was it possible? She had always known her father to be
lust and fair, and simply could not comprehend that the man had gone back on
his word. It wasn’t true.
    Her mind was reeling with disbelief.
It was a horrible, vicious mistake on William’s part. Mayhap it only looked
like Scott tartan to the untrained eye. But even as she thought that, she knew
it was impossible; William had been fighting the border wars long enough to
know the difference.
    Her heart broke into a hundred
pieces. But she would not truly believe it until she saw it for herself, she
had to see it for herself.
    If the worst were true, then she was
no longer a peace offering but an enemy captive. She would certainly spend the
rest of her life locked up in the tower, forgotten and hated. She had to find a
way to get away from the knight that held her and join the battle for two
reasons - to see if it was indeed her father’s army and, if so, to join them to
save her own life.
    Sadly she knew that if it were true,
if it were her father’s army, then she would lose a great deal of respect for him.
To live at Northwood as a prisoner or at Langton in shame was not much of a
choice.
    But she had to know. Her mind began
to form a plan borne from desperation. A thought occurred to her; she was a
woman, wasn’t she? Weren’t they said to have irresistible wiles?
    Her eyes narrowed cunningly and she
stealthily removed a soft kerchief from inside her cloak and, as casually as
she could muster, let it fall to the ground.
    “Sir knight,” she said sweetly. “I
seemed to have dropped my handkerchief. Would ye be good enough to retrieve it
for me?”
    Jason seemed to take delight in
touching her inappropriately. His hands were on her waist, her hips, and her
buttocks as she sat against him. In fact, he caressed her buttocks rather
provocatively and she was disgusted, horribly unnerved.  When he tried to grab
her right breast, she clamped an arm down and thwarted his attempt.  Laughing
low in his throat, he slid off the destrier and bent down to pick up the kerchief.
    His backside was turned up to her
and the opportunity was too good to waste. Planting her foot against the armor,
she pushed as hard as she could. Jason, weighted down by a hundred pounds of
armor, went rolling with the momentum.
    Digging her heels into the destrier
as hard as she could, Jordan reigned the animal in the direction the army had
taken and prayed she could control the massive animal long enough to reach it safely.
She had to know.
    The horse had pounded out nearly two
miles when she began to hear the unmistakable sounds of a battle. Screaming,
yelling, and clanging of metal on metal floated on the still-thick air. Jordan
paused, trying to follow the sounds. Her face was pinched from the exertion and
the cold air and her hair was kinking up in the damp mist, sticking to her
face, but she ignored it. Kicking the horse in the ribs, she reined it back
into the woods. The sounds were